


Dreams

by cassyblue



Category: Ancillary Justice, Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, sorry yall it has awn in so u know whats gonna happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassyblue/pseuds/cassyblue
Summary: Breq has a nightmare on the way to Omaugh Station.





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic i have written since high school so please bear with me. if you have suggestions on how to get better characterization or notice things really ooc please let me know! I wrote the first draft at 2am on a whim because of this tumblr post: http://gemofsphene.tumblr.com/post/152059450970/do-yall-think-breq-has-nightmares-obviously-if-she.

Her finger pulls the trigger even though she can't, she can't again. But she is not in control. This is not her. This is not her. She is the Tyrant's hand, not Justice of Toren. The scream echoes through all her ears throughout the ship. The blood pools as the Tyrant looks almost bored. One Esk is crying. They wail in unison. The soldiers stare terrified by the segments weeping. She did it again. The finger. The trigger. The red on the ground pooling around her boots.

Then it happens.

Awn stands up. Her eyes dead. Glassy. Her mouth twists into a snarl, “I was your favorite you, bastard!”

“My accesses,” the segments protest which does not stop Awn. The blood drips down awns face as she lurches forward-

Breq shoots up suddenly awake as a warm body curled up next to her shifts. She gasps as she tries to orientate herself. The blood still swims through her vision. It's another segment. Wait no, she is just One Esk Nineteen. There are no other segments of Justice of Toren. She's utterly alone in this small body. Sleeping at first had been difficult. It sometimes still is when there's dreams. She'd been awake all the time before, just shuffling off to the active segments. Now, her entire self was asleep and she had to see Awn again. Had to pull the trigger again.

Seivarden lays next to her awake. Breq scowls at her, she still has to play at human. They're not to Omaugh yet. Omaugh, she can put a hole in the Tyrant's head for what she did.

“What are you doing?” Brew says abruptly.

 Seivarden seems sheepish. Why would she be like that? She speaks quietly, “You were crying.”

“Crying?”

“You kept yelling about someone named Awn and accesses?” Seivarden says, “Was she someone in special operations?”

Breq tries not to recoil. Seivarden must not know. Seivarden is a liability but a useful liability. After all her old lieutenant was something of a curiosity to the Radchaai. Seivarden gives her credibility. That she tells herself is why she picked up Seivarden on Nilt. She doesn't care what happens to Seivarden as long as she's not in her way.

“Yes.”

Seivarden doesn't say anything. She rolls over her back to Breq. Her arms are crossed. Probably the kef withdrawal. Breq wants her to stay but also wants to tell Seivarden to go back to her own bunk. But the warmth of Seivarden’s thin bony body is comforting. Breq isn't alone. She wasn't alone before she was Breq -- the segments curled up together -- the soldiers bustling around her.

“Breq, should I go?” Seivarden asks. She sounds reluctant. Perhaps, she had her own nightmares of her own. Maybe Breq wasn't the one crying. Seivarden had cried quite a bit as a baby lieutenant. Nights had been hard for her. Justice of Toren had sung her to sleep on the worst nights, sometimes just slightly off key. Not enough Seivarden would notice but just enough for Justice of Toren to express displeasure.

Breq finds herself saying, “No.”

Why? She dislikes Seivarden, doesn't she?

Seivarden hums under her breath. It's the song that Breq used to sing to her before she was Breq. It was a simple melody, one that Breq surprisingly can't remember the origin of.

  _I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,_

_I wish I had my heart again,_

_And think I'd vainly not complain._

Breq presses her back to Seivarden’s letting the simple melody wash over her. It's not off pitch. It's in tune. Seivarden’s humming lulls her toward sleep. The irony,  her irritating former lieutenant helping her sleep. Breq could laugh bitterly. But she won't. She's too tired.

Her eyes droop as Seivarden turns again, this time to face Breq’s back. Seivarden must think she's sleeping. Well, she's half sleeping. She's too tired to keep her eyes open, her limbs are too heavy to bat Seivarden away.

She doesn't want to though. That is mystifying. She shouldn't be comforted. She shouldn't like this. She doesn't care about Seivarden. Or like Seivarden. Seivarden had never been her favorite-

Awn’s face from the dream appears and Breq jerks suddenly, recoiling as Awn screams, “I was your favorite!”

The tears come. She cant stop them. It's inconvenient. But she's weeping. Seivarden murmurs worried, her fingers hesitantly brushing Breq's shoulder.

Amaat! Breq wishes she was still part of One Esk, that the other Esks could hold this body to calm it down. Seivarden pulls her close, “Breq-”

“Don't talk” Breq says sharply but then adds, “Please.”

Seivarden cradles her silently. She gently strokes Breqs hair with her bare hand. It seems shy. Why did Breq think that? Why would Seivarden be shy? She's touched and been touched thousands of times by Breq before. No that had been Justice of Toren. Not this segment. Not Breq. But still Breq. Seivarden doesn't know that though, perhaps that's the shyness? No, it's the lack of gloves. Seivarden struggles with that. She complains about the lack of propriety often.

Breq closes her eyes as Seivarden hums “It goes all round”. She curls up into smaller ball letting Seivarden curl around her almost like a shield. Then she's almost asleep with Seivarden's face in the crook of her neck and Seivarden's arm over her as an reassuring weight. She's not alone, even if sometimes she wished Seivarden wasn't like a burr, that she had just let Seivarden go, or chased off Seivarden. She still doesn't understand why she would try to take care of former lieutenant. She's just a fragment of a ship. No, barely even that.

But she feels safe. Seivarden is familiar, predictable almost. She's not the lieutenant Breq wanted to find alive, to nurse, to save. And yet, Breq finds a small pleasure in it. Very small, she reminds herself as Seivarden mutters in her sleep. Not that she cares that much. She doesn't want to. But she's already attached to this disaster of a citizen as much as she hates to admit it.

 


End file.
